Rocking
by skyfare
Summary: Post-Purgatory, with a reappearance of Peter from the episode "Silencer." BA, and complete.
1. Part One

**A/N. The beginnings of what will probably be a posting deluge, in an effort to clear off some of the things I've had on my computer for months. As always: T for language, I don't own them so don't sue me, eventual BA, etc.**

**PART ONE**

His current computer wallpaper is Stonehenge. Thick slabs of rock imposed on the sky in a pattern that's infuriated and obsessed historians for decades. The beauty of it. All the possibilities.

It could mean anything.

But despite the supposition it's remained a mystery.

He stares at it, sometimes, when he's trying to give his mind a chance to relax and catch up (or when he just wants to ignore Ross). He thinks about what it could have been and what it might be, eventually. It's _Stonehenge_, after all. The unknown. The tantalizing answers held so very far out of reach.

He supposes he'll never know.

***

"_No_." Eames, shaking her head and bitterly refusing to look at him. "I can handle it on my own, thank you."

_God even though it slices right through his bones organs endocrine system he loves how she can say "thank you" like "fuck you" with easy utter disdain because it's so _her, _it's so _Eames, _and this is so stupid all he offered to do was finish up her paperwork so she could go home because he just wants to make it up to her stupid stupid stupid not to tell _her _he was going undercover because fuck everyone else, it's her he wants and needs and can't have._

_She's really angry this time._

Angry.

_And she has every right to be._

He realizes he's been standing staring at her for far too long. She's already icily seated at her desk, ignoring him and roughly flipping through the stack of files, each page slapping the next like a decisive judgmental refrain—_idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot—_that echoes in the noise of all their silence.

They finish their paperwork at exactly the same time. They didn't used to, but over the years they fell in synch and it worked out that way; they'd file their reports together and then go out for midnight breakfast or to a bar, and it became their tradition.

_Not tonight._

A long, tense elevator ride before they spill out in the twilit parking lot, gasping from the relief of being free from eleven floors of uneasiness.

"See you tomorrow," Eames mutters. And then she's gone, disappearing into her car and burying her face in her hands for a second before sitting back and starting up the engine.

_I've really screwed this up_, he thinks blindly. They've had some rocky patches before, but this? This is becoming as hard and as immobile as Stonehenge itself.

He's almost too depressed to continue on to his car. All that's ahead tonight is silence, anyway. A cold, unfeeling apartment he hasn't had the energy to clean lately, so there are books and clothes and dust everywhere.

But he can't stay here all night.

He has to go home.

Eyes to the ground, fumbling in his pocket for his keys.

And then he looks up.

His car is _destroyed_.

Stones through every window, tires slashed, fender ripped off, baseball bat-sized dents on the doors and hood, seats ripped out, engine leaking steam into the air, steering wheel hanging on by three wires and the word RAT spray-painted in blood red hundreds of times over every fucking available surface.

Oh.

Okay then.

Somehow he's on the ground, leaning back against his mutilated car and closing his eyes.

So it's come to this. He supposes he should be grateful they didn't jump _him _when he came out; that they didn't make him fight in front of Eames.

He stares out at the white painted parking lines on the blacktop. Thinks about how he just dropped comprehensive insurance last week to save some money. That makes his brain hurt even more so he just sits there, blank, numb, _tired_. Tired of fighting with Eames. Tired of trying convince everyone that he's sane, thankyouverymuch; tired of the looks the other detectives give him and the way Ross views him with suspect and how much he thinks about his family now, all of them, every last bloody member. Tired of how much he worries and recalls things he doesn't want to recall and dreams things he'd really rather not dream.

A horn blasts in front of him (_they're back)_and after a second he opens his eyes, beginning to drag himself up off the ground ready for Round Two (in which our detective superhero gets his ass kicked for betraying the fellow blue).

Eames is leaning on the horn, mouth agape, alternately between staring at him and his car. "What the fuck _happened_?"

He jerks his thumb at his car, pointlessly. "Apparently I'm not very well liked at the moment."

"I'll say," she says, her voice slow with disbelief. "So you didn't see anyone doing this?"

He shakes his head no no no. "What are you doing back here, anyway?"

She withdraws, tightens up her muscles and becomes even more compact before his eyes. "I was just about to pull out when I saw you sitting down. I figured…I'd better check on you."

"You wouldn't have had to do that," he says blankly.

"I'm used to it." The pointed sharpness of her words wrapped in the sweetness of her voice is like razors hidden in apples, because no matter what words she throws at him he'll always, always love the sound of her speaking, her clipped articulation and pauses before certain words and her distinctive tone.

He draws his knees up and rests his head on them.

"Goren."

_Goren. Not Bobby. Maybe not Bobby ever again._

Eames sighs. "Get in. I'll take you home."

He lifts his head but doesn't try to stand up. "I'm fine. Thanks for checking on me, Eames. You don't have to stay."

"I don't intend to." _Cyanide in caramel. _"But you're coming with me."

"I don't want to have to drag you into this, too."

"When exactly have you dragged me into _anything_ before?" she snaps. _Arsenic in cola_. "That's what this is all about, Goren. You don't let me _in_. You don't—" she breaks off and looks away, her mouth a stony unmerciful line. "No. I don't care." _White oleander in strawberries liquid heroin in Skittles plunge off the Brooklyn in dreamless sleep. _"You can't stay here with your car. Get in and you can call for a tow."

"I think it's beyond repair." Emotionless—it's just junk, after all, just a chassis and cloth seats wrapped in metal.

Hell, it's not like it's his relationship with _Eames_.

Which might also be beyond repair.

She gets out and walks around his car, slowly, tracing her fingers over the word RAT. Looks up at him and her mouth softens _maybe _a millimeter. "Not everything is completely destroyed, Goren."

It's a start.

***

The tow truck driver tries for five minutes to start his car before giving up and pushing it on to the flatbed manually. "You want me to take her to a garage or the dump?"

He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jacket, needing to feel something tangible because _none _of this seems real, anymore; it's all spinning out of his control. "Junk it."

"You're giving up on it?" Eames asks, standing maybe two feet away from him but at least not glaring anymore.

"I wouldn't, but…" he shrugs. "It's going to cost more than the car's worth to fix it."

"Pessimist."

He glances over at her quickly, because for just that one word she sounded like herself again, but maybe it was just in his head because she looks the same way she's looked for the past month: tired, and wary.

"I'll take you home."

She barely waits until he's in the seat before taking off, driving much faster than she usually does.

In the parking lot of his apartment building he's just bending down to say thanks for the ride when she drives off again.

He betrays her, and she becomes a speed demon.

It's still a start.

A _rocky _start.

***

At midnight, on his third Scotch on the rocks he wonders if maybe he should slow down, but then the forth begins to ease his doubts while the fifth makes everything ice, baby, and the sixth takes away _that _particular question and the seventh makes everything bearable enough that he can fall into a noisy, restless sleep on his couch.

He dreams hazy, alcohol induced dreams full of rats and Eames and spilled blood and restraints (subtlety is clearly lost in his dreams) and he wakes up the next morning two hours late, sweaty and shaking and still drunk.

By the time he flies into the office Ross is sitting on the edge of his desk, talking to Eames and glaring at him.

"I, uh, don't have a car anymore, and I got the subway times mixed up, and then I had to wait…" It all sounds like chopped up bits of random excuses thrown together to avoid the real excuse (that everything's so fucked_ up _right now).

Alex is watching him as he blandly explains all this to Ross. Not listening—she has her one earbud in and he can hear the faint strains of Staind echoing out.

Just watching.

"Don't let it happen again," Ross snaps, and walks away.

He puts his hungover head down and gets to work.

At lunchtime they're in Brooklyn, interviewing a potential suspect's girlfriend. Eames is hungry so they stop at a diner on a slow business decline—noon and there's only two other customers there. But his head is aching and it's quiet, so while Eames eats he half-heartedly downs two glasses of water and then puts his head against the window and goes to sleep.

Sometime later he wakes up to the firm pressure of Eames' hand on his shoulder.

"We have to go."

He's disoriented, hazy and nauseous and tilting. It seems only natural for him to put his hand over Eames' to try and steady himself.

She bends over at the hip (leaving her hand under his, he notices blearily). "Jesus, Bobby. What's wrong?"

_Bobby_.

Nothing's wrong, now.

But it is, oh, it _is_, because as he rubs his thumb over her fingers she pulls away and composes herself back into icy indifference. "You should get more sleep," she says neutrally. "You look like shit."

She turns, her coat flaring out behind her, and he follows her out of the diner, privately resolving to cut back on the drinking.

***

He'd like to take a rock to that sign language interpreter's _head_. Watching Eames as he did, pretending to have morals and dignity and _smiling _that ooh-I'm-such-a-nice-guy smile and being so cutely tormented by his ethics and reconciling the pathos of his past with his desire to, gosh, _help _and everything, and it's just so _sickening_. He noticed their fling when it began last year, of course (how could he _miss _it), but then after they solved the case he never saw the guy again. He assumed, from the little Eames said, that he (Peter?) wasn't in the picture anymore, but then he came into work today and saw the flowers on her desk and (guilty) read the card. _Amazing night. Great to reconnect. I missed you. Peter. _

He doesn't leave his desk for the rest of the morning, just sits and stares at the flowers and waits for Eames to come in so he can see her reaction. She always said she hated getting flowers, after all, all that work and money and then they die in three days anyway.

But she seems pretty damn happy when she comes in at 9:30 and sees them on her desk. She reads the card and smiles, secretly, to herself before sticking the vase under her desk so no one but her can see them (_too late_), and he's not allowed in this part of Eames' life and she's still mad and there's an icy rock of dread and jealousy forming in his throat and so this is how this is going to be from now on, this is what her answer is.

Eames leaves work early, clutching her flowers and murmuring something about not feeling well when Ross blandly asks her where she's going.

She leaves. He is alone with the rest of the detectives, seeing them glance at the clock and feeling them wish for the weekend and hearing them talk about their plans and what they want to do when all he's capable of is this spreading blank numbness that means Eames, finally, is gone. Maybe they'll still be partners, but nothing more, nevermore.

"What about you, Detective? Any plans?" He hears the strain of forced politeness in Ross' voice and he mutters something and leaves, tossing his coat over his arm and jamming his portfolio in his desk and storming off for the elevator, feeling ridiculous that he's so upset because it's not like anything's ever been set in stone for them; hell, the couple of times they've even gotten close to admitting—anything—one of them always held up hands and backed off and let it fade away.

Stupid.

So stupid.

And now she's with another and it's too late.

***

He's stone cold sober but weaving unsteadily as he walks, head down hands in pockets, the familiar roads to Eames' house. On her porch he pauses. Laughter comes out of the house, attacking him, making him want to reconsider.

He doesn't.

He knocks on her door, hands clammy but heart steady because it's not even a question of being nervous anymore, it's more he _has _to do this.

Seconds later Eames pulls open the door. Her hair is mussed and she's dressed in sweatpants and a tank top and her face is flushed. Her eyes are wide.

"_Bobby_?"

He goes forward and takes her hands and she doesn't pull away.

"What's wrong?" She's staring at him uneasily, her eyes probing his.

"I have to talk to you. I…we need to talk. About…things."

"So you're really going to do this _now_," she murmurs. "Your timing is impeccable, Goren."

"I know." His swallow can probably be heard several counties over. "Is Peter here?"

She pulls her hands free but holds the door open for him. "He cancelled on me. He's sick from last night's shellfish."

"Oh. Good."

"Good that he has food poisoning?" Eames snorts.

_Well…_

"No—no, that's he's not here. Easier. You know."

She sighs and leads him inside.

***

He starts off slowly, fumbling his way through prepositions and clauses and gerunds like never before because his mind is such a jumble and he feels this deep frantic _need _to spit all the words out at the same time, because if he doesn't Eames might turn silent and cold and stony again, and Peter might recover from his food poisoning, and the Apocalypse might rock the world before he gets the words out and makes this right.

Eames is seated on the couch with all that lovely open space right beside her, and he can't stop thinking about sliding up beside her—resting his hand on her knee and feeling her arm nestled against his.

But he can't sit. So he paces ridiculously fast in front of her—so fast he's practically running, whipping around so he's a blur against her fireplace and the floorboards are creaking under his pounding feet and the words are spilling out of him in a rough ragged jag of a shaking voice.

"And it seems like—I don't know, that I'm so _dependent _on you for everything, usually—not, not that I don't _mind _being dependent on you, not that I don't think you can't _handle _it, it's just that I don't want to be a burden on you and I know that I am, usually, sometimes, and I feel bad about it, and I just thought that maybe, I don't know, I'd leave you out of this one and deal with it myself and not worry you because you—you shouldn't _have _to worry about me, you don't deserve all the—fear—not fear, because I'm not saying that you care that much, enough to fear, although maybe you d—I don't know, but I shouldn't be your burden is what I'm trying to say, and I just wanted my badge back so much and I missed you so fucking much and I had to do what I could to get back to the job and back to you and I'm _sorry_, Eames, I'm _sorry_, I hate this so much—I hate this so much because I screwed up and I know it and I don't know what to do anymore, I don't know how to fix it, and I don't know what you want and now—"

He runs out of oxygen so he breaks off. Keeps pacing. He can't stop and look at her because if he sees her still so tense and angry he's going to collapse; he's going to deflate away into nothing and become this _ghost_ of a man who has his partner no longer.

"Stop it."

Her voice is sharp.

She's still mad, and there are no more words.

_Hello _ghost town, regions of the underworld—I'll bring the ghost punch if you bring the ghost cookies and we'll have a ghost party to celebrate this ghost fucking lifestyle, this shadowy impersonation of functioning detectives who once had _perfect _amazing real partners and now have Halloween and dull movies with Demi Moore and children's fear in the night.

"Stop _pacing _like that, Bobby. You're making me nauseous."

"Nauseous _and _angry, Detective; what a shitty combination." His voice is bitter—aren't ghosts supposed to be bitter, walking the remains of the earth searching for what they've never found?

"You're an _asshole_."

Tears prick (he _is _a prick) his eyes and he has to leave, because ghosts don't let real people see their ghost tears.

"I'm sorry for bothering you."

He turns to go but she is right in front of him, pushing on his chest with her hand and her eyes are snapping and her hair is sticking up and she's so surreally beautiful but he's not going to get to _see _her anymore like this because, no matter how _sur_real, ghosts don't interact with the actually real.

"Move, Eames." _Eames Eames Eames Eames Eames Eames Eames Eames goodbye oh Eames._

"_No_," she snaps. "You don't get to come over here and say all that and then just _walk away_. That's not how it works, Bobby."

Her hand flashes up and for a second he thinks she's going to _hit _him, but then he feels her hand gently on his cheek.

"I listened to your spiel; now you listen to mine."

He nods, defeated, and her fingers tighten against his face, her nails digging just slightly into his skin.

"I might be nauseous—I had some of Peter's shellfish—but I'm not _angry_ anymore."

He looks at her pale face in disbelief.

"Okay, so I might be a little angry yet." She sighs, and the hand not on his face goes to her stomach as she bends forward a little, wincing. "Let's sit down."

His hands snap around her waist to hold her up, if she were to collapse, but of course she won't because she's _Eames_.

She doesn't let go of him as they fall on to the couch but he lets go of her, because that's what he always does.

"This isn't the end of the world, Bobby."

"It _feels _like it," he murmurs before he can stop himself, and her nails dig even more into his skin.

"It's _not_. It's…" she sighs again. "You screwed up. You _really_ screwed up."

"I know."

She surveys him, and he suddenly realizes how close they are, how he's occupying that space beside Eames again and his hand _is _on her knee and her arm is resting on his chest because she's still clutching his face.

"But I know that you, in your own way, are trying to make it up to me. I guess."

He nods so that she almost pokes him in the eye. "I _am_. I just don't know what to do."

She lets go of him, sits back. "It's not like there's any magical cure, Goren. You—you _hurt _me. You didn't trust me. You can't wave your wand and have six months of abandonment absolved in a one shot."

"You think I abandoned you?" he croaks.

"In half a year—after eight years of partnership—I saw you _four _times, and all on my own initiative. I'd say that counts as abandonment, yeah."

"I was trying to _protect _you."

"_No_." Her voice is steely, and he recoils. "I don't want to get into that again. We are _partners_. _Equals_. You don't have to protect me, and I don't have to protect you. We work _together_." She winces, her hand straying to her stomach again. "Give me a minute, okay?"

He nods and she gets up and walks off.

He waits until he hears a door click shut and then he leaves.

**A/N. 90's (80's?) Footnote: Demi Moore was in the movie **_**Ghost **_**with Patrick Swazye. 'Twas about a ghost. Sort of. All I remember is Demi's drastically bobbed hair, Whoopi Goldberg as a séance leader, and some interminable scene of everyone running through a building (I was about six when I saw it on cable, okay). Anyway, I thought it might make more sense to clarify the "dull movies with Demi Moore" bit. **

**Also, I have no idea if steering wheels are attached by wires. I'm assuming they are, but I also imagine that it could be some sort of wild magnetic system. Or tiny parasites activated by touch running around on the inside like hamsters on a wheel turning it in synch with the driver. Or an entirely new gravity, a specific car-based gravity, that exudes from the dashboard out and encompasses only the steering wheel so it floats perfectly stable and manipulative in this carefully guarded secret of a polarized field of gravity that defies Newton in his grave.**

**I, uh, I'll stop now. Now I'm curious, and I have to go look that up--and it's probably boring, probably wires or a lever system or something.**

**This has nothing to do with CI.**

**On to part two (where there will be far less rambling)!**


	2. Part Two

**PART TWO**

When he returns from the drugstore, giant bottle of Pepto-Bismol in hand, he enters her house and finds her sitting on the couch.

"Are you worse? I can take you to the doctor."

"Just go, Bobby." Her voice is muffled in the sleeve of her shirt pressed up against her face. "I don't know why you go; I don't know why you come back, but stop fucking toying with me. I'm sick of it. I'm _done_."

He crouches down in front of her and waves the slip of paper he left on the coffee table. "I just went to the drugstore to get you some medicine. Didn't you get my note?"

She takes the paper from him. _**Went to store for meds back in a bit (promise) Bobby**_**.**

"I put it right there," he says, motioning to the table. "Thought you'd…see it."

She keeps her face hidden behind her sleeve.

"Alex." He lays his hand on her leg and she pushes him away, then grabs his hand back and hangs on, tight.

"You can't keep screwing with me," she says at last. She lets her hand drop, and her eyes are red. "I want…"

"Tell me what you want," he says when she doesn't go on.

"I want you."

The air is suddenly thick and he can't swallow, no matter how hard he tries.

Alex bends over at the waist, her hands on her stomach. "I want some of that Pepto-Bismol right now, too." He hands it over and she drinks straight from the bottle, making a face as she swallows. _She _is remarkably unaffected by what she's just said, especially considering how he's suddenly resurrected back into life by her words, no longer a ghost but real and warm and hard and suddenly desperate to touch her.

She spins the cap back on the bottle and sets it aside so there's just them watching each other.

"You…want me," he says carefully.

"I want you to _trust _me. I want you to be able to talk to me and tell me things and open up to me, a little. We are partners, after all."

"Partners," he echoes.

"Partners, and friends." Eye level with him, she leans forwards and lays her hands on his shoulders. "Right, Bobby?"

"Right." He swallows and eases up beside her on the couch. "We'll…we'll be okay."

She props her elbow up on his shoulder. "Eventually."

***

He gets to work early the next morning. Arranges himself at his desk carefully, everything positioned for maximum visibility of Eames.

He can't stop smiling. He tries ordering himself not to be so giddy, but after not smiling for so long he can't stop now that he has something he actually _wants _to smile about.

And she walks in, and gives him a little smile in return—not much, she doesn't show any teeth and her eyes don't light up as much as they usually do, but it's enough that he suddenly feels warm inside.

But later in the day he hears her on the phone making plans for tonight with Peter.

_Not like anything's been set in stone._

_But fuck, Eames._

He doesn't know why he expected things to be different. They fixed the ruins of their _partnership _last night. Made it workable again.

Nothing else.

"Have—have fun tonight," he says with difficulty in the parking lot.

She studies him carefully. "Thanks."

He dips his head once in a nod and then gets in his new car, a beater Lewis was ready to junk before he said he'd take it.

All that, and she's still with Peter.

_Definitely the answer._

No hope now.

Peter's better for her anyway.

***

Late that night, he's organizing his books when he hears Eames' knock on the door (_knock knock pause knock pause knock knock_). He stands up from the floor with some difficulty and surveys his living room. Books _everywhere_. There's not a clear path to the door.

He begins to navigate.

_Knock knock pause knock pause knock knock._

"I'm coming," he calls. Thinking: _why aren't you still on your date?_

He trips over Ovid's "Metamorphoses". Swears.

_Knock knock knock knock._

"Coming!"

A stack of Nabokov falls over on his bare foot. Swears again.

_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK._

"Jesus, Eames," he mutters.

_Maybe it isn't her._

_KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK._

Definitely not her.

"I'm _coming!_"

By the time he finally reaches the door he's knocked over half his books and it's midnight and the knocks aren't stopping now, this continuous throbbing noise he can't block out, and oh his neighbors are going to be so pissed. "Patience is a virtue!" he's bellowing as he flings open the door, glaring at whoever is out there.

Eames glares right back at him.

"What the hell were you doing? And don't try to tell me that it's late, because you weren't sleeping," she snaps.

"I was _cleaning_," he shoots right back. "It was hard to get to the door, okay? It's not like I was expecting visitors tonight."

"I was _two seconds _from breaking your door down."

"I can't handle any more things breaking down," he mutters, but he steps back. "Come in, but watch your step. I'm…organizing."

She glances past him to the floor and her mouth falls open, but then she grins. "Jesus, Bobby. You could open a library."

"Why aren't you still out with _Peter_?"

_Oops. Didn't mean to say that, really._

Eames glares at him again. "You drive me insane, Bobby, you know that?"

"What?"

She rolls her eyes and he considers that fair, considering.

"Still the shellfish poisoning? That man must have the stomach of an infant."

"Maybe it's best if we don't talk," she grumbles. "Otherwise I'm going to get mad."

"Again," he adds, and he recoils at the look she gives him—brick walls moving in on him from both sides, poison laced daggers, scythes swinging down closer and closer and shit he's in the bonds desperately rubbing them with meat (_could really use a rat or two now, Goren) _and he's in love with the Spanish Inquisition.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, and she sighs. "Would you like a drink, Eames?"

"No."

"Something to eat?"

"No."

"A book, perhaps? I've got plenty?"

"No."

_Me?_

No.

"It's over with Peter. I broke it off with him tonight."

_Oooooooh._

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Are you?"

He pauses for far too long, and she takes that as his answer.

"You know what? He was a really nice, decent guy. He was kind, and he helped people, and he dedicated his life to doing good—"

_Single-handedly stopped global warming._

_Walked on salt water and made it drinkable through his feet._

_Figured out the mystery of Stonehenge._

"--and he _liked _me. And…I liked him."

"So what's the problem?" he says coldly. "Why'd you break it off with him, Eames?"

She shakes her head slowly. "He called me Alexandra. He wasn't willing to do everything possible to solve the case. He—we could have had a healthy relationship, for one. He was open about his life, and he was willing to share it with me, and he wanted me to meet his family. He didn't like to read."

He stands mute in this sea of books. "Eames?" he says softly.

She breaks off and bites her lip and looks away. "It just—wasn't right, Bobby."

He moves in closer to her until they're right in front of each other. "Why wasn't it right?"

"All these questions," she whispers. "You're a hell of a detective." But she doesn't back away. "It didn't feel like…" She swallows.

"This?" he whispers, barely perceptible.

And she nods, barely perceptible.

It figures that their first kiss would be against a backdrop of tides of books.


	3. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

For their first date they go rock climbing. There's lots of touching, helping each other into the harnesses and all. There's lots of giggling. Some awkwardness, on both of their parts, but isn't that what a first date is supposed to be—talking and giggling and mystery and energy and the warm rush of possibilities?

Oh, the possibilities.

He walks her to her door and this is ridiculous, their nervousness; it's like they haven't spent the last eight years side by side.

But not like this, they haven't. And so he leans down, and her eyes are bright and welcoming and her lips are so vibrantly alive that he has to smile into the kiss, which ruins the moment a little because she pulls away and demands to know what's so funny, but it doesn't matter because there's another moment after that and then another and then another.

Moments all their lives, until they're both old, both retired from the force. No more cases. No more death to poke and prod every day.

But still moments.

Still possibilities.

Still warmth.

It's warm now, this twilight in May. They sit in rocking chairs on their porch, holding hands, and they watch the sun set.

This was not easy, getting to this point. There were fights, and stillness, and withdrawals. He made her cry more than once, and she made him cry a couple of times, too.

But they're _partners._

He knows her so well now, after thirty years of being together and eight of wishing they were. He knows how every inch of her feels under his fingers. He knows that she believes in aliens, a little, even though she doesn't want to--and he knows that he no longer believes in ghosts. He knows when she's going to like a certain book and when she's not, and he knows the specific face she makes whenever Ross, retired too, calls them to see how they're both doing.

But every day there's still something new, he discovers.

And maybe he'll never know it all, or have all the answers; maybe there will always be parts of her that are a mystery to him—but he's going to die exploring, trying to figure it all out.

He loves it.

He loves _her_.

And, wonder of wonders, she loves him back.

The _mystery _of it all.

The beauty.

His Stonehenge.

_~~Complete~~_


End file.
